


Between Us, In The Dark

by sunaddicted



Series: The way you said "I love you" [19]
Category: What We Do in the Shadows (TV)
Genre: Confessions, Happy Ending, Idiots in Love, Lack of Communication, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Miscommunication, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Vampire Guillermo de la Cruz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 10:28:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29807055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunaddicted/pseuds/sunaddicted
Summary: “Guillermo?”“Afraid so, Master”“You’re-”“-alive. Well, dead”
Relationships: Guillermo de la Cruz/Nandor the Relentless
Series: The way you said "I love you" [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1573432
Comments: 4
Kudos: 34





	Between Us, In The Dark

**Author's Note:**

> "when I'm dead"

_ Between Us, In The Dark _

When he opened his eyes, Guillermo knew that he was dead.

He couldn’t exactly point out the reason why he instantly knew - it was an overall feeling of being…  _ lifeless _ .

And apparently buried six feet under, in a casket that smelled old and musty - it probably was one of those coffins Nandor insisted on keeping in the basement for unlikely guests, despite the fact that they were rotting away and fell apart if one looked at them a little too closely. He wondered about where the vampires of Staten Island had seen fit to bury him, a little shocked that they had thought about granting him a honourable burial rather than just tossing his broken body away once it was clear that it couldn't be of any use to them anymore.

The air around him - what little air filtered amidst the dirt anyway - smelled foul, of rot and decomposing bodies; of rusty blood; of stagnant water and other liquids he didn’t exactly want to think about. 

So, the garden.

It made sense - why log a casket around town, in search of a cemetery you wouldn’t probably be able to get in because of the ground being consecrated when you already had a mass grave in your own yard? One corpse more, it wouldn’t change a thing.

Guillermo supposed he should have been glad of the fact that he was close to home, at least he wouldn’t scare anyone away after emerging from the earth like some kind of Hollywoodian zombie; he just had to drag himself through the garden and hope that someone answered the door - or maybe he could just kick it down: he didn’t need permission to enter a vampires’ household, did he? 

Maybe he did.

Considering he had wasted more than a decade of his life with servitude in the hope of becoming a creature of the night, Guillermo was a little appalled by his own ignorance. He knew he had given up on learning about vampiric customs and traditions at some point, his curiosity and faith in Nandor eroded year after year of getting nothing in return for his devotion.

Guillermo sighed: he had to get out of there.

Clawing his way back out to the surface was at the same time smoother and rougher than it had ever looked like in the movies; the earth wasn’t liquid, it chafed and it itched against his skin, but it also wasn’t as vicious of a trap as its compactness suggested, easily breaking beneath his fingers - though, he supposed that could be chalked up to the fabled inhuman strength vampires possessed.

Cool.

Breaking the door down if nobody answered was still a viable option, then. And even if he couldn’t step inside without an invitation, he sure as hell could scream until one of the vampires was annoyed enough to come and check out what was causing such a racket; it was a plan that lacked any finesse but Guillermo didn’t think he should be too concerned with that when he was covered with slimy earth and the bloodstained clothes nobody had seen fit to change him out of before burying him.

He knocked, feeling already weary at the thought of having to cause a scene in order to get some attention.

Which was why he jumped when the door gave away beneath his knuckles, his loosely curled fist almost into Nandor’s face.

“Guillermo?”

“Afraid so, Master”

“You’re-”

“-alive. Well, dead”

Nandor narrowed his eyes: could it really be Guillermo? He had buried his familiar with his own hands, had even gotten his cape dirty to dig a hole that would be comfortable enough for the other man to rest in forever.

He had cried a little too - not that he was advertising that, though: it was a secret shared only between himself, the dark and his familiar’s corpse.

“How?” 

How could Nandor trust that it wasn’t some shapeshifting witch trying to trick him?

How could Guillermo have come back to life?

“Can I give you the details inside, it’s kinda chilly out here”

“You can’t feel the cold anymore”

Guillermo rolled his eyes: couldn’t Nandor have chosen another moment to be so fucking stubborn? He just wanted to get away from possibly scrutinizing eyes and into the safety of the old rickety house that he knew better than his own pockets - into his  _ home _ , where he felt safe “Just let me in. Please”

Nandor pursed his lips, undecided about what to do; sure, he was a mighty warrior: even if Guillermo turned out not to be  _ his _ Guillermo afterall, he was more than capable to deal with the beastly imposter - but why risk it? 

“ _ Nandor _ ”

“Fine” 

“Invite me in, then”

Nandor rolled his eyes; he wanted to say that the real Guillermo would have never been so rude to him but the truth was, his familiar had always been a little bossy and he had always talked back quite a bit, considering the fact that he had a lot of experience and should have known better.

The truth also was, Nandor wouldn’t have wanted Guillermo to be any other way; sure, he would never admit it - he was a vampire warlord, he had to act the part and show some dominance - but he had always loved the other’s rebellious streak and his combative spirit.

_ Loved _ , yes.

That was a problem Nandor wasn’t quite ready to face, especially not after believing that Guillermo had died, his fingernails subtly darkened by the dirt he had fisted into his hands and thrown on the other’s coffin - angry and desperate, raging against fate that had so cruelly taken his beloved away from him before Nandor could even begin to tell Guillermo about how he felt. Of course, the vampire knew he was abundantly at fault there; as unused as he was to talk about feelings and trapped in their master/familiar dynamic, the words hadn’t managed to find their way out of his throat until Guillermo had been buried six feet underground.

“Come in”

“Fucking finally” it wasn’t  _ that _ unusual for Nandor to behave weirdly but Guillermo frowned: there really was something different about the other that he couldn’t quite put his finger on “Are you ok?”

“I’m okay-a” he couldn’t be anything else - Nandor flashed his fingers up at Guillermo in the okay-a sign, thumb meeting the middle finger rather than the index one “There is a snack in the cellar” he offered and then he disappeared in his crypt, for once understanding what exactly his familiar had meant all those times he had said he was in need of space.

For the first time in centuries, Nandor noticed that he couldn’t breathe.

* * *

In the end, it all made sense: amidst the carnage at the Nouveau Théâtre des Vampires, it wasn’t that unlikely that before bleeding out, Guillermo had accidentally ingested enough vampire blood to slowly make his way back to the living death.

In the end, Nandor was more than happy to have Guillermo back even if it was as a vampire - something he had tried to avoid at all costs despite his familiar’s efforts to gain immortality; he dithered in the dark, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for death to change Guillermo into someone Nandor couldn’t love anymore.

In the end, Nandor was still pretty much shell-shocked by the fact that Guillermo was there, walking around the house in those ridiculously soft sweaters of his - so lifelike that for a few seconds, Nandor could allow his mind to think that nothing had happened at all: Guillermo was still soft and human, his loyal familiar who hadn’t thought about brandishing a wooden stick at his master even once yet.

* * *

Nandor was behaving weirder by the day.

Alright, maybe it had been more than a tad foolish of him to hope that now that they were equals, Nandor would suddenly discover he had feelings for him - Guillermo could admit to that and wash the bitterness away with some blood.

(No, virgins didn't taste any better)

What he hadn't predicted, it was Nandor to act as if he didn't want him in his house anymore. Which, for all he knew since the vampire didn't really talk to him, it was exactly what he wanted but didn't have the guts to say to his face; he wondered if he whispered behind his back in the shadows, complaining to Laszlo and Nadja about how he couldn't handle having him around for much longer.

Guillermo didn't understand why that would be the case, though: after eating the human they had been keeping in the cellar, he had made sure to avoid depleting the other vampires' snacks - preferring to hunt down his own; he still cleaned around and got rid of the bodies, unwilling to live like a slob just because in vampiric society familiars were expected to bear the brunt of such work; he even tossed their clothes too in the wash when he took care of his own. 

In all but name only, Guillermo was still very much behaving as he had before and Nandor had never had any problems with that. 

The only thing that had changed, it was that he was a vampire now.

Old fears resurfaced, his head echoing with all the times Nandor had refused to turn him into a vampire with an excuse or another, despite his faithful devotion and loyalty - clearly there must have been a real reason for Nandor to put it off so constantly because the vampire was… well, at the very least upset by the fact that he had become an immortal.

“Why are you so disgusted by this - by me?”

“What?”

Had he still been human, Guillermo was sure that he would be flushed red with anger and humiliation, his quickened heartbeat spreading blood beneath the skin stretched over his facial bones - he wasn’t anymore, though, and the only thing that gave away his feelings was the way he clenched his fists by his side and the desperate edge in his voice “Don’t play dumb!”

Nandor blinked, slowly putting down the glittery pen he had been doodling with “You burst in here and started raving like a lunatic” he pointed out.

“Tell me”

“Tell you what?”

He took a deep and completely useless breath “You have been avoiding me”

“I have  _ not _ ”

“And you  _ hate _ me”

“Guillermo-”

“I don’t understand, Nandor! I was fine to have around as a slave but you can’t stand me for eternity - is that it?”

“If only you’d let me explain…” getting interrupted so frequently was starting to become a little annoying “I’m just wary of you”

That certainly wasn’t the answer Guillermo had been expecting “How so?”

Nandor shrugged “Death changes people”

“And?”

“And you’re dead”

“But I haven’t changed and you’re still avoiding me” Guillermo tilted his head to the side, eyes narrowed behind his glasses as he studied the other vampire; he had hoped that he wouldn’t need them anymore, to be completely honest - that just like in  _ Twilight _ , the vampire blood would cure him of his imperfections and make him beautiful “You think something has, though”

Nandor looked down at his hands “It’s not really that” he muttered before heaving a sigh “I don’t want to have this conversation”

“Well, I do. Spit it out.  _ Now _ ”

It truly was bewildering how much Guillermo sounded like Nadja when he was upset - there was something in the tone of his voice that reminded him of her inflection when she would call him a stupid donkey.

Nandor wasn’t sure he was a fan of the similarity “There are things I can’t know if they have changed”

“Like what?” Nandor muttered something intellegibile in reply, making Guillermo roll his eyes hard; having the sensitive hearing of an immortal was useless when the words were mangled beyond comprehension " _ Nandor _ " he could feel his patience growing thinner, weariness and bitterness settling on his shoulders in equal measure "Just for once, can't you just say what's going on in your mind?"

"Feelings, alright!" Nandor crossed his arms over his chest and he would tear into Guillermo's throat if the other even dared to hint at the fact that he was barricading or whatever it was the other had read on some pissicology forum "I can't know if those have changed. You loved me as a human"

" _ You knew?! _ "

Maybe admitting to that hadn't been his smartest idea. 

"You knew and you let me  _ pine _ over you for years?!"

"It's better not get entangled with humans in such a way" Nandor mumbled.

"Why do you even care, then?" Guillermo was shaking with anger, it filled every nook and crevice of his body. 

Did the other really need to have it spelled out? "You're not human anymore"

"And you're hoping that means I have gotten over it so that you won't have to endure my pathetic feelings for the rest of eternity?! Well, newsflash, Nandor: I'm dead and I love you!  _ I still love you _ " 

"Good" Nandor got up from his desk and patted the other's shaking shoulder "Because I love you too and you're not going to die on me anymore"

"You love me"

"Yes" Nandor frowned "Is there something wrong with your ears, Guillermo"

"You were  _ afraid _ I wouldn't love you anymore" realisation was slowly downing on him, shock settling in his bones: if he could have passed out, he would already had. 

" _ Concerned _ " Nandor bristled "I'm a warrior - I don't fear" it was a lie, of course, but one had to keep some dignity - even in the presence of a lover "I'll expect you to move your coffin in my crypt" 

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Writing accidentally turned into a vampire Guillermo is becoming a trend - sorry not sorry


End file.
